NASA's FY 2022 Budget

NASA's budget is $24.04 billion for fiscal year (FY) 2022, $800 million less than the President's Budget Request of $24.8 billion.

Though the fiscal year began in October of 2021, the final congressional legislation was not passed until March of 2022, six months late.

Increases in Defense spending and prioritization of other social programs ultimately limited the amount of funding available to NASA and many other science programs in the U.S. government. The final amount still represents an increase of 3.3% over the previous year.

Explore this data in context. View historical NASA budget data, including breakdowns by fiscal year, comparisons to total U.S. spending and GDP, on this Google Spreadsheet.

The Presidential Budget Request

The President's Budget Request for NASA was released on May 28th, 2021. Highlights of the proposal included:

• "The Earth Systems Observatory...a new set of Earth-focused missions to provide key information to guide efforts related to climate change, disaster mitigation, fighting forest fires, and improving real-time agricultural processes"
• Full funding to support a Mars Sample Return mission
• $143.2 million for the NEO Surveyor mission to enable a mid-2020s launch
• Continues the Roman Space Telescope, the follow-on mission from JWST
• Modest increases for Artemis human landing system (HLS) and Gateway lunar station. Supports a single award for development of the HLS program.

Proposed Cuts in FY 2021

• "Proposes termination and orderly shutdown of SOFIA, the second-most expensive operating mission in the Astrophysics Division, to focus on higher priority science"
• Proposes to end the Nuclear Thermal Propulsion technology development program in order to focus on surface fission power for near-term lunar exploration.

President's Budget Request Source Documents

• FY 2022 Agency Fact Sheet
  
• FY 2022 Congressional Justification
  
• FY 2022 Summary Budget Brief

Congressional Action

In July 2021, the House of Representatives released its proposed funding legislation for NASA. It provided $25.04 billion for NASA, $238 million above the Biden Administration's request.

Notable differences included the restoration of funding for the SOFIA space telescope and funding for nuclear thermal propulsion. The legislation also provided $150 million more for Artemis' Human Landing System than requested. And though it laments the lack of competition in the program, it did not require a second contract selection. The legislation also provided more funds than requested for continued development of an upgraded SLS rocket and mobile launch tower.

The Senate released its appropriations legislation on October 18th, 2021, though it did not pass them out of committee.

A final compromise bill combining all U.S. government appropriations was passed by Congress on March 10th and signed into law on March 11th.

The final compromise legislation provided less funding than either the House or Senate versions, though it still provides 3.3% growth over the previous year.

Highlights:

• $1.195 billion for the Human Landing System program, matching NASA's request, with no unfunded mandate for a second service provider beyond SpaceX;
• $653 million for Mars Sample Return, as requested, a 2.5x increase over the previous year. Also includes additional language specifying that Congress "strongly supports NASA's highest priority planetary mission";
• Funding for the NEO Surveyor asteroid-hunting space telescope;
  
• $3.12 billion, a new record for NASA's Planetary Science Division, though $80 million less than requested;
• $200 million below the request for Exploration R&D, which funds the Gateway space station and next generation spacesuit program;
• Full funding for the Roman Space Telescope project;
• Flat funding for Space Technology, $325 million below the request;
• $101 million for low-Earth orbit commercialization projects related to human spaceflight.
  

Cancellations

The final congressional legislation funded both the SOFIA airborne observatory ($85.2 million) and nuclear thermal propulsion ($110 million) — both projects slated for cancellation by the President's request.

House Appropriations FY 2022 Source Documents

• Summary of House CJS FY 2022 Legislation
• FY 2022 House CJS Appropriations Legislation, HR4505, NASA Section
• FY 2022 House CJS Appropriations Committee Report, NASA Section

Senate Appropriations Committee FY 2022 Documents

• Summary of Senate CJS FY 2022 legislation
• FY 2022 Senate CJS Appropriations bill, NASA Section
• FY 2022 Senate CJS Appropriations Committee Report, NASA Section

Final FY 2022 CJS Appropriations Legislation

• FY 2022 Omnibus CJS Appropriations Conference Report, NASA Section
  

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